AMA hits back at celebrity surgeon Charlie Teo

The AMA has returned fire as Charlie Teo maintains his ‘war’ with the medical establishment.

Controversial Sydney neurosurgeon Charlie Teo. Picture: AAP

Medical leaders have hit back after an attack by celebrity brain surgeon Charlie Teo claiming the medical establishment is “the enemy”, trying to push him out of the profession.

Aust­ralian Medical Association president Tony Bartone urged cancer patients who had been quoted prices by Dr Teo to seek a second opinion, as the high-profile surgeon comes under further pressure from colleagues over fees he charges.

Dr Teo told a Perth radio statio­n yesterday he “almost had to retain a lawyer full-time to fight off the establishment”.

“The bigger picture here is not about me. It’s about all those poor doctors who have been bullied by the system and not survived it,” he said.

The backlash comes after Dr Teo told Nine Entertainment Co newspapers he had made “some bad surgical decisions” in his career­, but defended his right to charge fees that leave some patient­s up to $120,000 out of pocket and forced on to crowd-funding websites to pay for his brain cancer surgery.

Dr Teo went on to make a series­ of extraordinary claims, describin­g the medical establish­ment as “the enemy” and accus­­ing the Royal Austral­asian College of Surgeons of trying­ to “purge him”.

Dr Teo gave a graphic description of the “relentless and vicious” pressure he has faced over the prices­ he charges for his surgeries — which he promotes as procedures that other surgeons deem inoperable — and said the toll it placed on him was leading him towards quitting.

“When the distractions become too great and I can’t give my patients what they deserve, I will call it quits,” he said. They will eventually get me.

“I know that sounds a bit fatalistic but I think it is probably true. A lot of good people have gone down to the system.’’

Concerns were first raised about Dr Teo’s practices last month when The Australian report­ed that Sydney cancer specialist Henry Woo questioned the “really disturbing” trend of people fundraising tens of thousands of dollars to pay Dr Teo to attempt to save a loved one’s life.

Dr Teo defended the allegations that he overcharged, and said he received only $8000 from a ­surgery he performed that left a patient $120,000 out of pocket.

Responding to the claim that his organisation was “the enemy”, Dr Bartone told The Australian it continued to oppose the practice of “egregious billing”, for which Dr Teo has come under fire.

“I encourage patients to insist on fully informed financial consent and seek a second opinion if desired, from someone else in our high-class system. No one should have to mortgage their house or raid their super fund for access to appropriate care in Australia.”

AMA ethics and medico-legal committee chairman Chris Moy told The Australian he hoped doctors would con­tinue to be “brave enough” to call out the practices of colleagues that weren’t in patients’ interests.

“Nobody should be outside the normal code of ethics and code of conduct in their care of patients,” he said, adding that doctors “real­ly shouldn’t be self-promoting”. “I’m very concerned about any comments that undermine the ethics and behaviour of the main professional body and regulator.’’

A spokesman for the AMA told The Australian Dr Teo was not a member of the organisation.

Dr Teo also singled out the Sydney Children’s Hospital at Randwick as “the most vehement and maliciou­s” hospital he had worked with, over a requirement that his patients go to intensive care after their surgery. He said this meant the hospital could control­ how many surgeries he performed by saying there weren’t enough beds in the ICU.

However, a spokeswoman for the hospital responded to Dr Teo’s accusation, saying his patient­s had to follow the same protocol as all patients in the hospital, regardless of the surgeon.

The Royal Australasian College of Surgeons and Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency, which Dr Teo mentioned in his attack, declined to comment to The Australian.

Dr Teo did not respond to The Australian’s request for comment.